Holder: DoJ may still charge Zimmerman

posted at 5:21 pm on November 5, 2013 by Bruce McQuain

Holder, during an April speech to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, pledged to “take appropriate action” if the agency finds evidence of a potential federal civil rights crime in the Zimmerman case.

So the DoJ is still mulling action against George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin – even though a Florida jury found Zimmerman not guilty of the charges that had been brought against him. But Holder, apparently, has a special constituency he answers too and it isn’t the citizens of the United States. For most of them, the case is closed. For the Al Sharptons of the world, however, such a case is never closed. And Holder is their man:

Holder said the agency’s investigation is under way.

“I’m not sure exactly how much longer that will take, but we will get to a point where we are able to make a determination,” he told reporters at an unrelated news conference at the agency’s headquarters.

The probable charges, if any are made, will likely be a charge of depriving Martin of his civil rights. However, it is going to be seen by many as an arbitrary application of the law, especially given the not-guilty verdict in the Zimmerman trial. Holder certainly knows that this could be an extremely controversial move on is part and seems to be dampening expectations:

However, he has since cautioned that the Justice Department faces a “very high barrier” in pursuing federal criminal charges in such cases.

On Monday, he noted that the courts had already weighed in Zimmerman’s case.

“The case of George Zimmerman — and what happens there — I think a substantial part was resolved in the case that was tried,” Holder said.

Maybe, just maybe, common sense will prevail just this once, and he’ll eventually back away from pursuing the case against Zimmerman.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

And you can also “thank” Allen West for this as he helped to encourage it with his facebook post (which has now been removed, but not before it was copied) which basically made the attacking thug Martin into a poor child victim and Zimmerman into a murdering white/Hispanic devil.

Allen West: “I have sat back and allowed myself time to assess the current episode revealing itself in Sanford, Florida involving the shooting of 17-year-old Treyvon Martin. First of all, if all that has been reported is accurate, the Sanford Police Chief should be relieved of his duties due to what appears to be a mishandling of this shooting in its early stages. The US Navy SEALS identified Osama Bin Laden within hours, while this young man laid on a morgue slab for three days. The shooter, Mr Zimmerman, should have been held in custody and certainly should not be walking free, still having a concealed weapons carry permit. From my reading, it seems this young man was pursued and there was no probable cause to engage him, certainly not pursue and shoot him….against the direction of the 911 responder. Let’s all be appalled at this instance not because of race, but because a young American man has lost his life, seemingly, for no reason. I have signed a letter supporting a DOJ [Obviously this would be Eric "My people" Holder] investigation. I am not heading to Sanford to shout and scream, because we need the responsible entities and agencies to handle this situation from this point without media bias or undue political influences. This is an outrage.”

Only governments can commit civil rights crimes, not individuals.
Of course such a minor detail won’t stop Holder.
And he’s just been sitting on this until they needed a SQUIRREL!!! moment anyway.
Don’t expect this to come to anything unless thy need more and bigger distractions later.

Well, the Obama people are dumb at a lot of things, but they know how to work politics. The point of this is to throw a bone to the base and shore up weakening support. And it’ll probably have some effect.

Welcome to the Obama Administration. Not Guilty means nothing to these people, they’re lawyers, don’t you know. Mr. President graduated from Harvard Law, don’t you know. They know better than us peons, what the Constitution means. They wish to interpret it, as it would have read if they had written it, instead of those old White men.

Exactly. Hard to know how Zimmerman would be deemed to be acting “under color of law” per the civil rights statutes. But whatever indictment they bring will be a bloody shirt to wave going into the midterms.

When opponents of this persecution cite chapter and verse of the law, they’ll be branded racist, etc. for defending Zimmerman’s rights.

Then, after the elections, they’ll watch as the courts (the contempt for which held by Holder et al. seems unlimited) throw out the indictment.

Maybe, just maybe, common sense will prevail just this once, and he’ll eventually back away from pursuing the case against Zimmerman.

Common sense vs. Obama agenda.

The black panther thing was thrown under the rug. Not to many Americans actually know about it. Everybody knows about Zimmerman. The media being as compliant as it is won’t help if DoJ charges Zimmerman. It just snips those who would fight back in Zimmerman’s defense.

Thanks…we have a lot of people running around from that school of higher learning that can’t write or read so you are probably correct. She will probably graduate at the top of her class without ever attending a class or stepping foot on campus. When she moves up the political ladder we can seal the transcripts.

Yes, Zimmerman was acquitted under Florida law. But under several of the 14 listed offenses in Article 58, RSFSR Penal Code; Zimmerman can be charged with a range of crimes and prosecuted until they get a verdict they like. This is a nation that has been “fundamentally transformed”, after all.

But Holder, apparently, has a special constituency he answers too [sic] and it isn’t the citizens of the United States.

I believe you meant “to”, but it’s a preposition, which ought to precede its object:

But Holder, apparently, answers to a special constituency, and it isn’t the citizens of the United States.

Holder is supposed to lead the Justice Department, but his actions (such as dropping the case against the NBPP after the Bush Justice Department had already obtained a conviction) have made it clear that what he really leads is the Just Us Department.

OK Holder. You are apparently complicit in the murders of Mexican nationals via Fast and Furious, yet haven’t spent one day in court (or in prison). You now want to prosecute, persecute another Hispanic, Black (remember that one drop rule?) for an act he was found not guilty of. You must have went to the same schools as Obama.

This is all a bluff by Holder. If they had something they could even remotely try to charge Zimmerman with, they would have done it by now.

Holder knows he has nothing and the screams of “double jeopardy” will keep him from actually doing anything. But he’s gotta keep Sharpton & Co. thinking he’s doing something.

Bitter Clinger on November 5, 2013 at 5:26 PM

I’d actually like to believe this was true. But I don’t.

My reason is that it seems to suggest that Holder really knows better, and that what he is doing is posturing purely for public consumption, and that he will eventually let it go. But I think he is driven by a baser motivation, much as was Angela Corey.

Recall, that Angela Corey had time to think about this incident, knew what the proof consisted of, and yet instead of “doing the right thing” she opted to charge George Zimmerman with second degree murder, a charge on which she should have known she could not possibly prevail.

Now . . . maybe she was bluffing and hoped that Zimmerman would plead out to manslaughter. But I don’t think so.

My impression throughout was that she was actually motivated — on at least some level — by a racially-based animus. She set aside her capacity to reason, to dispassionately evaluate evidence, and she also set aside any sense of professional ethics she may have had at some point along the way.

Corey personally cloaked herself in a role she could not resist . . . that of “avenging angel” and she attempted to get revenge by filing the charge without even employing the intermediary process of taking the case to a grand jury!

In much the same way, I think Eric Holder is also incapable of publicly announcing anything other than his intention to file a federal criminal civil rights action against George Zimmerman. It is in his craw. Dropping it, or not acting would be, in my opinion, the ultimate humiliation in Holder’s mind. And I think he is just taking all this time to convince himself he has the strongest possible case he and his investigators can muster when he charges GZ.